How long doesCitrus fruitlast in the pantry?
Why the freezer is not an option here
The USDA marks the freezer as not recommended for this item, so the answer comes from the pantry from the day of purchase figure: 10 days. The source fills 2 of its fields outside the freezer here, and every one of them is printed below. It is not a warning: food held at 0 °F stays safe, so a not-recommended is a verdict on what would come out of the freezer.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. The source also indexes it as grape.
- In the freezernot recommended
- Unopened · in the pantry10 days
- Unopened · in the fridge10 days to 21 days
Turning the range into a date
The window here is 21 days, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down. The field for this one is at the top of the page, above the answer it changes.
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by10 days after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by10 days to 21 days after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 10 days in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying it keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts it past its 10 days in the pantry window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.
The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.
Is that a long time?
15 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as this item, 21 days, so they all share place 14 of 89 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 12% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 6 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 21 days, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
9 other products are rated in exactly these places — pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Coconuts, Artichokes and Taro. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 8 shown, 5 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Almond oil at 2 years.
- Coconuts2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Artichokes1 week sealed in the fridge
- Taro7 days sealed in the pantry
- Jicama4 months sealed in the pantry
- Pumpkins3 months sealed in the fridge
- Soy flour6 months sealed in the fridge
- Tapenade9 months sealed in the fridge
- Almond oil2 years sealed in the fridge
The rest of the Fresh Fruits shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Fruits shelf together with 29 others, and 5 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut at 1 year down to Cherries at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are Coconuts, Kumquats and Pitaya/dragon fruit, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 21 days rather than at the 10 days sealed in the pantry its own answer prints.
- Coconuts3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Kumquats3 weeks3 weeks in the fridge
- Pitaya/dragon fruit3 weeks2 days in the pantry
- Cantaloupe15 days5 days sealed in the fridge
- Blueberries2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Melons2 weeks2 days in the fridge once opened
- Star fruit2 weeks1 week in the pantry
- Prickly pear2 weeks2 days in the pantry
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 21 days, the Produce aisle gives 12 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Apples at 6 weeks against this one's 21 days; after it come Cranberries, Onions and Potatoes. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 45 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Basil and Bean sprouts among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.
- Apples6 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Cranberries2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Onions2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Potatoes2 months1 month sealed in the pantry
- Spaghetti squash2 months2 months in the pantry
- Pomegranate3 months1 month sealed in the fridge
- Jicama4 months4 months sealed in the pantry
- Pumpkins5 months3 months sealed in the fridge
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 256 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the source prints its binding figure in days, so the window at the top of this page is the source's own number untouched. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap. The same record answers to grape in the source's own index.
Where these numbers come from
Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.
Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.
Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.
Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.
USDA index terms: citrus, Citrus fruit, clementine, clementines, fruit, grape, grapefruit, lemon, lime, orange, tangerine, tangerines
KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.